14 SUMMER 2014 PHI KAPPA PHI FORUM
would resurface during the 1909 bloodshed at
Adana, when an estimated 25,000 Armenian
Christians perished at the hands of Ottoman
Turks. 10 The successful rebellion of Bulgaria,
Greece and Serbia, all with large minority
Christian populations, against Ottoman rule
emboldened prominent politicians to establish
the British Armenia Committee in 1913 to
lobby for the enforcement of minority protections in the Ottoman Empire. 11 Turkey’s decision in November 1914 to join WWI on the
side of Germany put Allied pledges to Christian minorities in sharp relief. By this time, Britain was recognized as the primary watchdog of
minority interests in the Middle East.

Diplomatic endeavors

Indeed, the butchering of more than 1 million
Armenian civilians by Ottoman Turks in 1915-16
renewed calls to honor this commitment on both
sides of the Atlantic. Reports of the Allied invasion of the Ottoman Empire at Gallipoli on
April 25, 1915, were followed by news of the arrest of more than 200 Armenian intellectuals
and religious leaders on unnamed charges by the
Ottoman government. 12 Such transgressions
transformed for some activists what one commentator initially called a “war against German
militarism” into “a war of liberation” for “small
nationalities” throughout Europe and Asia. 13

Viscount James Bryce, a well-regarded British
statesman known for his advocacy of Armenian
causes, cabled The New York Times: “All civilized
nations able to assist the Armenians today
should know that the need is still extremely urgent. … [T]his requires worldwide assistance for
feeding, clothing, housing and repatriation.”14

Viscount Bryce, who also had long sat in theHouse of Commons, set to work on a documentthat made the defense of minority civiliansduring wartime a matter of honor for the inter-national community. Issued as a ParliamentaryBlue Book in October 1916, his 733-page vol-ume offered compelling evidence of concurrentannihilation throughout Anatolia (Asia Minor).Bryce attributed this pattern to an “exceedinglysystematic” policy by the Ottoman Turks toeliminate Armenians and other Christian mi-norities from the Ottoman Empire. 15 Citing ex-amples of “pious and humane” officials and“Moslems who tried to save their Christianneighbors,” Bryce maintained that “there isnothing in the precepts of Islam which justifiesthis slaughter.” 16 These findings, commissionedby the British government, brought together forthe first time the proof and arguments thatwould shape the definition of genocide. 17

U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire
Henry Morgenthau witnessed Armenian brutali-ties firsthand. He echoed Bryce, lamenting that
the Armenians were being “pitilessly destroyed.” 18 Bryce, a respected former ambassador to the U.S. and named a member of the International Court of Justice at The Hague in

1914, set the pace. 19 These two diplomats published disturbing and verified accounts that had
wide audiences and a tremendous effect on public opinion. 20 The Armenian barbarities cried
out for a universal humanitarian response, the
authors argued. This “matter of vital import to
the honour of humanity and the good faith and
wellbeing of the world,” as the Archbishop of
Canterbury put it, constituted an “outrage on
civilization without historical parallel in the
world.” 21 Morgenthau put the matter more
bluntly in a confrontation with the Turkish elite:
“You are making a terrible mistake.” 22

So the U.S. enlisted with the British in pressing for investigations. Divided public opinion in
the U.S. over the war delayed President Wilson’s
decision to enter it until April 6, 1917. However,
his longstanding endorsement of British objectives was well-known, despite his initial public
platform of neutrality, and extended to the
aid of persecuted Ottoman Christians. He
buoyed self-determination for minorities in his
“14 Points” from early 1918. Wilson, who reputedly kept a portrait of former British Prime
Minister Gladstone on his desk, supported autonomy for Ottoman minorities in Point 12; it
proclaimed that “nationalities which are now
under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested
opportunity of autonomous development. …” 23

Humanitarian, civic, church, and missionary
organizations attested that the Armenian blood-bath constituted what Bryce had labeled a premeditated, politically motivated offense. International channels recognized it as what today
would be called state-sponsored terror. A joint
European declaration issued on May 24, 1915,
accused Turkey of crimes “against humanity
and civilization,” marking the first use of the
term in relation to mass atrocity against civilians. 24 The U.S. immediately was made privy to
this declaration, which raised the stakes for the
U.S. and Britain by making it a matter of honor
to do something to prosecute the guilty. As
Bryce’s Blue Book concluded, “the Young Turkish Ministers and their associates at Constantinople are directly and personally responsible,
from beginning to end, for the gigantic crime
that devastated the Near East in 1915.” 25

Troublesome prosecutions

The Allies, especially spurred by Britain,
sought legal redress for war crimes after combat
ended. 26 They made the Ottoman Empire aware
that because it had sided with Germany, in
peace negotiations it would be liable for wrongs
committed against minorities during the war.
After the signing of the Armistice with the Ottoman Empire in late 1918 at Mudros, the press
confidently affirmed that the prosecution of
“those responsible for the massacres would come
as a matter of course” because the Ottoman Empire feared harsher if unspecified measures “
imposed by the Allies.” 27

This warning proved cogent. 28 The Allies
made the Ottoman War Crimes Tribunals, a series of courts-martial set up to prosecute Turkish
officials for the Armenian massacres, a condition of the peace. 29 By spring 1919, the Ottoman
bureaucracy, under British persistence, had arrested more than 100 high-profile suspects including government ministers and military officers. 30 Trials began in early 1919 and disbanded
in July 1922.31

Three minor officials were executed for
“crimes against humanity,” a term deployed by
British representatives and Ottoman prosecutors
in reference to the proceedings. 32 Over the next
three years, at least 63 additional cases came to
trial involving 200 suspects, but only a fraction
were convicted, and the majority of those sentences were never served. 33